SKYE DIDN’T NEED A BABYSITTER. LIVY STILL FELT CONVINCED OF THAT, THOUGH IT COULD BE SHE JUST WASN’T READY to face the idea of Skye needing anything resembling a nurse or a nanny. But some friendly company would help, as Morgan had said; especially someone who could cook. Grady’s culinary inventions sounded delicious and Livy wanted them in her house. Livy could easily rationalize it that way.
Also, Skye seemed to want him to come. That alone was notable, as she showed so little interest in anything lately. How could Livy not ask him?
Livy had taken the morning off to drive Skye to her appointment, and planned to spend the rest of the day working from home, emailing trail-restoration volunteers with the month’s plans. But she could put that off another half hour.
She heated up canned soup for lunch, made sure Skye ate some, then told her, “Since I’m here, I’ll walk down to the garage and see if Grady’s interested. Okay?”
Slouched on the sofa, browsing Netflix by remote, Skye nodded.
“Cool. Back soon.”
Livy walked down their sloping street and turned onto the shoulder of Shore Avenue. She told herself her thumping heart was nervousness at asking something kind of weird from someone she didn’t really know, and was certainly not excitement about talking to Kit again.
She strode up to the garage. Grady leaned his back against the mudsplattered pickup truck, eating what looked to be some kind of wrap.
As she approached, he swallowed a bite and greeted, “Hey.”
“Hey. Is Kit around?”
“Yup. Office.” He nodded toward the door.
“Thanks.” She paused. “I hear you cook. Is that something you made?”
He nodded and tilted the half-eaten wrap toward her to display it. “Tandoori steak, cucumber, and mint. With romaine.”
“Good God. That sounds fantastic.”
“Might as well eat something that tastes good, right?”
“You have the right attitude.” She sighed, thinking of her woeful can of soup. Best not to even tell him about that. “Talk to you soon.”
He waved in the middle of another bite.
She stepped into the office to find Kit behind the counter, frowning over a ledger book. An open Tupperware container sat beside it. The smell of warm Italian herbs mingled with the usual motor-oil scent.
He looked up at her and his scowl cleared to a surprised smile. “Heya. What’s up?”
“Hi. I have kind of a weird question for you. Well, an offer. And it isn’t really for you, it’s more for Grady, but I didn’t want to put him on the spot, so I thought I’d ask you.”
“I am officially intrigued.” Kit rested both hands on the counter’s edge, arms straight, and gazed at her.
She interlaced her fingers in front of her chest. “Well…his cooking sounds so amazing, and I suck at it so much myself, that I was thinking it’d be nice to hire him to come over and make us lunch or dinner some days. It’d be mainly hours I’m not around, but Skye would be there, and I think she could use the company, the way she’s felt lately. I know she could use the good food.”
Kit considered, lifting his eyebrows. “He may go for that. I gather he hates working on cars. Only because he tells me daily.”
“It’s just if you could spare him. Hours could be flexible, so it wouldn’t get in the way of his schedule here.”
“Eh, just between us, he’s not that much help in the shop.” Kit picked up a slice of pizza from the Tupperware and held it out on his palm. “This, now, is his superpower. Here, try. You’ll see.”
“Oh, no, I don’t want to take your lunch.”
“I got plenty. Seriously, try it.”
Livy caved in, took the pizza slice, and bit into it. The flavors blossomed in her mouth, a perfect blend of garlic, basil, crust, and what tasted like the top-quality varieties of pepperoni and mozzarella. “Mmm,” she said around the bite. “Okay, yeah. This. We want this.”
Kit folded his arms, watching her with satisfaction. “He took pity on me and made me pizza, but of course it’s still fancy pizza. Pesto instead of marinara, some kind of leaves on it along with the pepperoni.”
Livy tasted the scrap of wilted salad green she had just encountered. “Arugula maybe?”
“Something like that.”
“It’s awesome. Wow.” She ate another bite.
“Then sure, I’ll ask him. Would there be any job duties besides cooking?”
“Not really. I mean…I admit it’s also that I’d feel better knowing someone was there with her, at least sometimes.”
“And this is okay with her? Him being in her space?”
Livy finished the last bite of pizza, and nodded. “She said to ask him. I have the feeling she thinks he’s cute.”
Kit grinned. “We’re playing with fire, then.”
“Not necessarily. They could just be friends. Anyway, they’re adults. It’s their deal.”
“Write your number.” Kit flipped over a business card and slid it across to her. “I’ll let you know what he says.”
Cooking at home for two women, one of whom was depressed and needed cheering up with good food—well, it wasn’t Grady’s dream job, but by now he had to admit in defeat that it was better than what he was currently doing. Sure, he told Kit, he’d be happy to go check it out.
Kit texted Livy to tell her they’d come over after the garage closed. Kit had given Grady a ride to work, so they drove back to the island first, where Grady picked up a sample of his cooking for this Skye woman to taste.
“I’ll take you there, show you where it is,” Kit said.
“I can probably find it myself. Town’s not that big.”
“Still, I’ll come say hi.” Kit sounded too casual, flicking his truck keys between his fingers.
Ah, right, because Livy was the woman whose hand Kit had been kissing the other day. Grady smirked and let him come along.
They parked the truck at the corner of Livy and Skye’s dead-end street, and walked up toward the address she’d given.
It was a light blue single-story house at the top of the cul-de-sac, with a sagging wire fence around a garden of robust-looking bushes. The forest loomed behind it, and Grady’s thoughts flew to his mystery woman again. But only for a melancholy few seconds, because then Livy came out and strode down the front path.
“Hey, Grady.” She beamed. “Thanks for coming.”
“No problem.” He held up the paper bag. “I brought scones.”
“Ooh, that sounds perfect. Wait—no fruit in them?”
He shook his head, puzzled. “They’re cheddar.”
“Good. Skye’s got a weird aversion to fruit lately. I don’t know.” She glanced back at the house, then lowered her voice as she faced the two men again. “She also doesn’t talk a lot these days. So if she’s quiet, it’s not that she doesn’t like you. But she’ll listen, and might interact, and… anyway, you can come in and see if this is something you want to do.”
Grady’s feet grew cold at those warnings. He was a cook, not a mental health specialist. But he could make excuses and get out of it later if he wanted. For now he’d at least go through with the introductions. “Sure, let’s go say hi,” he said.
Livy smiled in gratitude and led them up the path. Grady exchanged a guarded, uncertain glance with Kit.
They stepped into the house, which smelled faintly of coffee and perfume, and followed Livy into the kitchen.
“Hey, Skye,” she said. “This is Grady.”
Grady’s curious glance around the kitchen stopped dead as his gaze landed on the young woman sitting at the table, her dark hair in a bun with bits coming loose, her haunted eyes drinking him in.
Her.
He pulled in a rapid breath through his nose, and felt his eyes widen, then mastered his reaction so it didn’t show beyond that, even as his heart began hammering like a piston.
He’d considered this younger sister might be his mystery woman, but he hadn’t realistically dared hope it. Now here she was, and he was being offered the chance to spend a few hours a day with her and get paid for it—okay, he still needed a lot of explanation about that forest kiss, but at the moment, he only thought ecstatically to the Powers That Be, Oh thank you thank you thank you.
He gave Skye his best effort at a friendly smile. “How’s it going?” He tilted the open paper bag toward her. “Cheddar mini-scone?”
Skye looked gravely at the bag, nodded, and took one of the scones.
“They’re good,” Kit remarked. “I ate six for breakfast.”
“Six?” Livy laughed.
“They’re small.”
Skye began nibbling the scone. Her gaze kept returning to Grady, and he found it hard to tear his away from her too. As Livy talked to him about the stove, the pantry, and the sorts of things they usually ate, he did his best to pay attention, nodding and studying utensils, feeling like a dork.
“I don’t know, if you want to give it a try for a day or two…” Livy concluded after a few minutes.
Grady nodded. “That’d be great.” He glanced at Kit, who lounged against the door frame. “Better than getting motor oil in my hair, that’s for sure.”
Kit smirked.
Skye still watched Grady, not smiling or speaking. But she had eaten the whole mini-scone, at least.
Grady agreed to start tomorrow morning, ten o’clock.
They walked back out to the front yard, and this time Skye got up and wandered along with them.
“Oh, man.” Kit squinted across the fence. “Duncan’s old Caddy. I haven’t seen that running in, what, ten years?” He veered across the garden to get a closer look at the hunk of automotive junk in the neighboring driveway.
“No one has.” Livy followed him. “It’s been sitting there forever. Look, it’s got vines growing through it.”
The two of them walked to the fence, talking cars, but Grady stopped paying attention. He looked down at Skye, who hovered in silence at his elbow.
“Good to see you again,” he said quietly.
“Good to see you,” she murmured back.
“What happened in the woods? What was that? Why’d you kiss me, then why’d you run off? I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
She hugged herself and looked at her shoes. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“No—I don’t—look, it’s okay, I liked it. Don’t be sorry. But what was it? And why’d you say ‘Help me’? Help you with what?”
She cast a miserable look over the roof, toward the forest.
“With…feeling like this?” he guessed, softening his voice. “They said you were feeling down lately. Is that what you meant?”
She looked at the ground again, and shrugged one shoulder.
He shot a glance at Kit and Livy to make sure they were still chatting. “Then I hope it did help,” he said.
She didn’t answer or look at him, so he added, “Is it actually okay with you, my taking this job?”
She met his eyes again, and nodded.
“You sure? You want me here?”
“Want you,” she whispered.
The way she said it, gazing at him, choosing those words to echo— an erotic thrill shivered through him. Which was all messed up in light of, well, everything. His body couldn’t forget how that kiss had felt.
“Then I’ll come by tomorrow,” he said. “We can get acquainted. Maybe I’ll even figure out how to help you.” He smiled, as if this was a perfectly normal conversation.
She only looked unhappy again, and glanced away.
“Ready, man?” Kit walked back over with Livy.
Grady nodded. “See you tomorrow, then,” he said to both women, but his gaze lingered three times as long on Skye.
“Looks like you got a chance to talk to him a little?” Livy said. She and Skye stood on the small concrete front porch, watching Kit and Grady stroll back to the truck.
Skye shivered. The cold outdoor air seemed to invade her body now that he’d left. “A little.”
“Nice enough guy. I hope he’ll like it, a job doing something he enjoys, even if it’s just temporary.”
Skye shrugged, distracted. She felt the pull of the forest behind her, hated it and longed for it.
“I think he likes you.” Livy smiled as she watched the truck drive away. “Could hardly take his eyes off you.”
Skye’s eyes filled with tears, her misery uncontainable.
Livy glanced at her, and the smile quickly changed to a look of concern. “Hey, what, what’s wrong?”
Skye flopped her hand up and down herself, and ended with a hopeless flourish that pointed back toward the woods. “This.”
Livy wrapped an arm around her, and guided her back into the warm house. “I know. It sucks, not being able to talk to people as easily as you used to. But you will again. I know it. You’re a strong woman, babe.”
In the front hall, Skye sniffled and nodded in acceptance.
Livy patted Skye’s shoulder. “How about some chai?”
Skye nodded again. While Livy slipped into the kitchen, Skye wandered across to the back pantry, rested her forehead against the window in the door, and gazed out at the dark treetops.
Grady did seem nice, genuinely so, which tortured her even more. He will follow you. She had thrown out a magical hook and ensnared him without thinking of the consequences. She ought to send him away, keep him at a distance, for his own good. But he probably wouldn’t go, thanks to the spell that had infected him; and in any case, the magic was working on her too. Just as she longed for the forest out of all proportion, she now longed for him as well, her chosen mate.
She was ruining his life, yet she couldn’t bear to let him go. She closed her eyes. She’d thought the spell couldn’t get any worse, but it already had.
Kit had wanted to ask her. God, how tempting it had been to beckon Skye aside and just say those few words: “Hey listen, did goblins have anything to do with this?”
But seven years’ worth of keeping this liaison business a secret was too heavy a roadblock to shift. If she wasn’t enchanted—which, odds were, she wasn’t—he’d sound crazy if he asked that. And then she’d tell her lovely, hot sister how insane he was, and he’d never get to enjoy milkshakes or anything else with Livy again. Word might even get out to the rest of the town: what was up with Sylvain, talking about goblins or some shit? Losing his mind like his parents, real shame. Yeah, no. He couldn’t ask.
Besides, if she was under a spell, there was nothing he could do about it. No method existed for humans to counter goblin magic, or at least none that he or his unlucky ancestors had ever heard of. So, really, he prayed it was ordinary depression, much as depression sucked.
Maybe it was, and maybe Grady was about to turn everything around for Skye, just by virtue of being himself, with his good nature and mad cooking skills.
If Grady was honestly up for it.
“Sure you want to do this, bro?” Kit asked him as they drove across the one-lane bridge to Crabapple Island.
Grady gazed out the side window. Bridge railings blurred past. Behind them rippled the expanse of silver-gray water separating the island from the rest of town.
Kit’s question seemed to register a few seconds late. “Yeah, of course,” Grady said, his eyes still on the water.
“She’s pretty,” Kit admitted. “I just wonder if, I don’t know, she needs more help than you can give. She seemed really…withdrawn. Especially compared to how happy and talkative I remember her being in school.”
“She talked to me a little.”
“Well. Good.” They came off the bridge and curved onto the loop road. Tall conifers took over, interrupted by the occasional mailbox. “Anyway,” Kit said, “it’s not like helping her is totally down to you. Livy did say she was getting counseling. This is just more like hanging out with her. And feeding her kale or whatever so she’s healthier.”
Grady finally looked at him. “So she wasn’t like this till recently?”
“Yeah, Livy says it came on suddenly, a month or so ago.”
“Caused by what?”
“No one’s sure. Guess it’s not like her at all.” Kit pulled the truck into the rutted gravel drive that led to his house.
“Huh.” The cabin came into view, with its asymmetrically sloped roof and the sprawling mess of sculptures-in-progress in the yard. “I wonder if something happened.”
Kit parked the truck, and frowned out the windshield. “Let me know if you find out.”